City councillors put the kibosh on a proposed 48-storey mixed-use condo overtop Crews & Tangos, the iconic drag bar near Church and Wellesley.
The venue “is important to the Church and Wellesley community,” said Coun. Chris Moise, who represents the ward, at Tuesday’s meeting of the Toronto and East York Community Council.
“This proposed development really will change the landscape of the community in a negative way,” Moise said.
Crews & Tangos has been a “storied venue for drag performances and queer gatherings” since 1994, city staff said in a report. The building is a “cultural landmark within the Church and Wellesley Village and for Toronto's broader 2SLGBTQ+ community.”
Graywood, the development company behind the proposal, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Councillors’ decision to vote down the proposal will go before city council as a whole in February, but that is unlikely to save it. The company could appeal the decision to the Ontario Land Tribunal.
In 2022, city council approved a 14-storey mixed-use building with 165 units at the site but last year, the company put in an application for a much larger 48-storey building with 574 units.
The 165-year-old building is a heritage property adorned with a mural painted in 2014 to celebrate Pride Month. It was unclear if the bar would be allowed to remain. The recent proposal added community space for Pride Toronto in response to community concerns.
City staff said councillors should reject the application because the new building would be too tall for the neighbourhood.
City policy regards the area as “stable” and one that “should experience limited growth, both along Church Street and in the residential areas” near it.
“Development and redevelopment should reinforce the core Village area as a low to mid-rise pedestrian-oriented main street,” according to the staff report.
Development in the Village has long been a contentious issue. In 2020, an online petition to limit growth in the area and preserve important LGBTQ+ landmarks garnered more than 31,000 signatures after Graywood submitted its initial proposal for a 15-storey building.
After Graywood submitted its most recent application last year, the city held two consultations with local residents who took exception to the building’s height and lamented the loss of cultural institutions.
